BA Club World review

As I tend to fly at least one return a year in Club World, I though I should finally chuck my thoughts into the ongoing debate of Upper vs CW in the form of a trip report/produce comparison on my recent return to Chicago.

Pre flight
Despite working within walking distance of T4, I needed to get my car home for the week whilst I was away so nipped home and got a cab back to T5 were my aged mother was waiting for me. My mum isn’t the best flyer due to a long running phobia so I tend to look after all the admin and ticketing etc when I go away with her so she basically knew when to turn up at T5 at that was about it..

Check in
I was booked into CW whilst my mum was booked into Economy (yes this is unfair but I had a wedge of miles to use up and I had my suspicions she may be upgraded anyway..). We made our way down to the club check in and straight to an open desk where the kind gentleman handed us our boarding passes to 15J&K – Yes my mum had been upgraded and yes I had been assigned my favorite seat on the 777... (Slightly more than luck but I won’t go into that on this forum). My mum was blissfully unaware that she’d been upgraded at this point and I intended to keep it that way.

Security and lounge
Security was as always useless at T5 this is one of the areas that Virgin smashes BA and when you get used to the private security channel it really is difficult to appreciate any other product. We finally made our way airside and through the terminal to get to the lounge. My mum was aware that she’d be in the lounge as my guest and was very excited at her first ‘VIP lounge’ experience as she kept calling it! Champagnes ordered and settle in for the wait. The lunge isn’t a patch on the clubhouse as expected and is purely a comfortable seat for a couple of hours.

Boarding was called and we made our way to the predictable bus to the aircraft. Why BA need to use this option so much is beyond me and really takes the shine off the Club World product. The mix of econ/WT+/CW/F on the same busses also doesn’t help. Once on the aircraft I made some excuse about my mum (still completely unaware!) needing to follow me to her seat then showed her the lovely CW seat to much surprise and phone calls to friends etc…

We settled in for an uneventful take off and pretty good flight all round. My thoughts on the product comparison are as follows;

Seat – BA wins on the actual seat itself with the exception of the flappy footrest that never seems to work properly. However the Virgin layout wins hands down for access and personal space.

Food/Wine – Afraid BA has always won on this part for me, some very nice wines with a more than acceptable food option. Having seen how low the BA per person spend on club/first catering product I don’t see why Virgin can’t increase the wine options at least. Do love the club kitchen though.

Service – In my experience BA is more professional but I feel less pampered. Being young, generally being on holiday instead of work and liking a beer means I tend to prefer the Virgin personable approach.

IFE – Useless. Rolling videos, no on demand functionality. The 777 system can’t be that old!!

General – BA Club to me is like a VW Passat, very functional and comfortable, rarely lets you down, but doesn’t have the extra x-factor. Little things like the ground experience, on-board bar, the flirty air crew etc all make the Virgin product a more enjoyable experience in my mind. If I had a choice I would always fly Virgin (especially if on the Virgin 747 with the full size seats not the mini airbus seats) If on BA avoid the 777 wherever possible as the Club layout is crazy.

And yes my mum did love the experience of flying business class for the first time, although I’m slightly concerned she’s expecting me to arrange all her flights in the future!!

Thanks for the insight into CW. It is one of those age old debates that I don't think will ever be truly settled. Is it really an issue if y&j pax share the same bus whatever next?

[honey lamb]

Thanks for that. I'm having my first CW flight on Thursday and indeed my first BA flight for 26 years so I'll be interested to compare my experiences to yours

And yes my mum did love the experience of flying business class for the first time, although I’m slightly concerned she’s expecting me to arrange all her flights in the future!!

Only slightly concerned?

[HighFlyer]

I agree with much of your post. The IFE on the 777 is a mix of AVOD and non so looks like you were unlucky on this flight.

I do prefer the service and less flirtatious nature of the crew though, just seems more professional in my experience.

I do miss the bar though!

I've just come back from NYC flying out with VA from LCY and returned via Newark with VA. Whilst not overly comparable, I'll try and do a trip report in the next day giving my impressions of both services.

To be honest, VA was the better of the two - seemed less pretentious, cabin crew attentive and the lounges help a lot. Priority bags seemed to mostly work - labelled as UC and on the belt within 2 mins of the carousel starting up. That said, a couple of PE tagged bags were mixed in.

A good thread which always throws up some interesting comparisons. We also took our first NCW flights earlier in the year, 2 adults + 2 kids and we had a thoroughly acceptable experience both ways. The lounge in T5 is no CH for sure and you are correct about the security factor in T5. Again VS have it. On board we found it to be fairly evens with the suite, but my preference is the VS pod. The BA footstool is rubbish, again as you correctly point out. Where BA did come out better was in the catering overall, it was excellent and the raid the larder was excellent. Hot tomato soup at your beck and call y)

We will have another NCW experiece in March, again for family hols albeit on the crazy 777 layout.

I have 200K VS miles to spend though so will have a trip hopefully to Vegas at the end of next year.

Iain